Readers respond to an article by George Monbiot on how complete societal transformations are possible when the political will is there
I agree with George Monbiot that “catastrophe is not a matter of fate. It’s a matter of choice” (Think big on climate: the transformation of society in months has been done before, 20 October). I don’t think, though, that the analogy with the US in 1941 holds, for two reasons.
First, the US was responding to a national threat, post-Pearl Harbor. The climate emergency is a planet-wide threat, at a time when universalism and international solidarity are in retreat. Second, as Franklin D Roosevelt stated, the US achieved a “miracle of production” – the mobilisation of a capitalist economy on a war footing. But the process of production was inherent to the logic of capitalism.
